


Everything Is Not What It Seems

by amathela



Category: Disney RPF
Genre: Drama, F/M, Romance, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 01:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amathela/pseuds/amathela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're being stealth.  (Or, the art of keeping a relationship secret when your boyfriend wouldn't know subtlety if it hit him over the head.  Repeatedly.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything Is Not What It Seems

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cold_campbells](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cold_campbells/gifts).



David is not at all subtle.

His hand is on the small of her back, high enough to be decent but too low to be just friendly, and she's _this_ close to reaching around and moving it herself. Except, well. She _can't_, because the last thing she wants to call attention to the way he's touching her, and she's pretty sure slapping his hand in front of a dozen photographers isn't exactly subtle, either.

So she smiles for the cameras, ignoring the way David's hand traces slow circles above the fabric of her dress, and when they've started to move on, eyes and ears and camera lenses directed elsewhere, she leans in close and hisses a warning through clenched teeth.

"Hand," she says, but David only smiles; almost as if he didn't hear her, except the smile reaches his eyes, now.

And his hand slides maybe an inch lower.

Selena takes a breath - a _deep_ breath, never mind that her dress is kind of tight and it makes her chest push at the fabric uncomfortably - and matches his smile, because the photographers are still _there_, even if they're not being photographed this very instant, and of course the moment her composure starts to slip is the moment they'll all come rushing back.

"Move it," she says, keeping her voice pitched low, "or you'll never see what's underneath it again."

That does the trick.

-

Maybe she has a glass of champagne at the Emmys.

(Maybe David has more than one.)

"Give me that," she says, leaning over him to grab his phone, and he gives it up without a fight.

It's not the smartest thing she's ever done.

(Whatever, they can pass it off as a joke later.)

-

At the after party, she feels like she can breathe for the first time all night, like they aren't hiding anything.

(Okay, they just aren't doing it _well_.)

-

"I hear you have eyes for me," David says, making, like, the most ridiculous face _ever_ at her.

"Whatever," she says, but she squeezes his hand, swinging it slowly between them, leaning in until she could almost rest her head on his chest.

Maybe she lights up a _little_ whenever he's mentioned.

-

"So," he says, coming up to sit beside her. "The script."

Under the table, his hand rests comfortably on her knee, his thumb occasionally sliding across her skin in a way she's not even sure he's aware of.

"Yeah," she says, and she can't quite keep the laughter from her voice.

He doesn't actually say anything _about_ the script, but she wasn't expecting him to; she can see through a flimsy excuse when one comes right up and sits next to her, and David's are the flimsiest, always.

(Once, when a production assistant came around a corner at exactly the wrong time, he made up this whole story about they were _rehearsing_, but really, the scene was getting a little risqué for Disney, even if they were brother and sister. Which really should not have worked, even a little, but - she'll give him this, when David gets into a role, he _really_ gets into it.)

"Your hair looks nice," he says, leaning close and mumbling, the words tangled together in a rush so that she can barely make them out. She can feel herself blushing, anyway, and David's hand stalls on her knee; when she looks over at him, his gaze is fixed on her mouth, and she wants to remind him that they're in public, that people can _see_ them, but the words catch in her throat, and she ends up licking her lips, instead.

"We could rehearse later," she suggests, trying to keep her voice casual, but it's an art she hasn't really mastered yet, and it ends up sounding more like a bad pick-up line. Which, okay, it sort of is, only she's not that kind of girl, really, and maybe she just needs to get better at this.

"Rehearse?" David asks, perking up, like he heard what she said in exactly the way she didn't mean it. Except - well, she _thinks_ she didn't mean it. Maybe. He has a way of making her head all fuzzy, sometimes.

"Or something," she says, and that's even worse. David grins, and she ducks her head, and by the time they start filming, they're behind schedule because makeup had to spend half an hour reapplying her foundation to hide the blush creeping all the way down her neck.

And all that does, really, is make David look at her in that way he usually only does when they're alone, and really, how they've managed to keep this a secret at all is beyond her.

-

Sometimes, she really, really wishes their dressing room doors had locks.

-

They're small things - the brush of her waist as he passes her; clasping his hand, just for an instant, when nobody is watching; a look, or a smile, standing a little closer than protocol would dictate or letting her hand linger on his arm whenever he speaks.

It isn't enough to give them away, but it almost is, and sometimes she can't help thinking that adds to the thrill of it - not like it's dirty, or illicit, or wrong, but like it's something that's just for them, sweet and secret and safe. (At least, that's what it is for her. Sometimes, she thinks David gets off on nearly being caught, but it's hard to mind when he pulls her close, kisses her, demanding nothing and promising -

Something, maybe.)

_We're really close friends_, and not everyone buys it, but the people who are important do.

(She likes to remember the way he kisses her throat, the way it makes her laugh and _that_ just makes him do it more, but she never stumbles over the words.)

-

"There are no cool girls in L.A., huh?" she asks, sitting down while David leans against the side of the couch. He looks almost embarrassed for a minute, and then he shrugs, smiling easily, sliding down onto the couch beside her in a way that almost looks unrehearsed.

"I believe the word I used was classy," he says, like that's the point.

She raises an eyebrow at him.

"And I meant no other girls," he says, speaking softly, and his voice does this quiet-but-genuine thing that she loves, rare as it is. "Obviously."

"Obviously," she says, elbowing him gently, and that seems to break through whatever near-contrition he's feeling.

"Besides," he says, "that was totally stealth."

"Stealth?"

Yeah, okay.

"Stealth," he repeats, and if they have to keep saying it, she's pretty sure it going to become one of those things where a word starts to lose all meaning. "I'm all, 'I want a girlfriend, I'm so single.' It's, like, a cover."

"So, we're what?" she asks, and has to think about it for a second. "Dating spies?"

"We're dating spies?" he asks, totally putting the emphasis on the wrong word, so it sounds like she's being ridiculous. "Can I be James Bond?"

"That's not what - you know what I mean," she says, rolling her eyes, and nudges him with her shoulder, hard enough to put him off balance a little even thought he's sitting down. "Besides, James Bond is British."

"I could be British," he says, and she sees it coming, but not early enough to stop it. "Tally ho, pip pip, fancy a spot of tea?"

It is, hyperbole aside, the worst fake English accent she's heard in her life.

"Stop that," she says, and so he _doesn't_, keeps talking, his voice getting louder, his accent getting worse. Eventually, he resorts to quoting lines from what she can only guess are Bond films, and she breathes a sigh, sits back, and waits for him to finish.

Sooner or later - emphasis on later - he gets it out of his system.

"Are you done now?" she asks, and he nods, happy, like that's really all it takes to entertain him. David's so _easy_, she swears, and that's -

Well, it's one of the things she loves about him.

"See?" he says. "Totally stealth."

She can barely even remember what they were talking about, and she can't help suspecting that was half the point.

-

She's sitting so close to him she can feel his leg shaking up and down - just a little, not like it's nervousness or anything, they've done this a hundred times before, but he fidgets, when he's bored or uncomfortable or just plain wired, and she has to curb the impulse to reach out to him, to still him with her palm pressed flat on his knee.

She didn't mean to sit so close. They just - they _sit_ like that, without even thinking about it any more, and the camera zoomed in until they couldn't pull apart if they wanted to. So.

She stops herself before her leg starts moving in time with his.

-

He smirks and rolls his eyes, and she _knows_ he thinks she's lame, whatever.

(One day, she'll beat him at thumb wars for real, it's going to be awesome.)

-

Okay, so he gives her this _look_, and she just - she can't help laughing.

There's something in his smile like a promise.

-

(Finally, she thinks she gets it - he doesn't like not touching her. So she leans into him, rests her head on his shoulder, and she can almost feel the tension draining out of him, see the way his smile becomes a little more genuine.

It's a pain, sometimes, when he gets all sulky about it, but she likes knowing how to fix it, likes knowing that she can.)

-

"We wrap early," he says, and seriously, if this is his definition of _stealth_, it needs a lot of work.

James Bond, he isn't.

She barely understands him, mumbling at a volume that's barely audible as he walks past her, not slowing, only he's talking out of the corner of his mouth and he has to bend over and lean in close just so she can hear him at all. And it's not like anyone's even paying attention to them, which is probably good, because there's no way that little exchange would pass for casual conversation.

"Really?" she asks, speaking normally if a little softly, and honestly, she doesn't get if he's being deliberately obtuse or if he genuinely has no idea how obvious he is.

"Really," he says, and there's nothing subtle in his look, at all, not even like he's trying to be.

And, okay, sometimes she doesn't mind.

"Then I guess I should go home," she says. "Get some rest, maybe wash my hair."

Okay, she knows people are busy or whatever, but seriously - she's pretty sure she could see the way he's looking at her even with her eyes closed.

"Or we could hang out," she says, and she doesn't even try to keep from smiling, any more.

"Sounds like a plan," he says, abruptly going back to running lines out loud, and she swears he's, like, a heartbeat away from passing her notes written in secret code in invisible ink, or something.

That's probably stupid, or ridiculous, or just really, really juvenile and not at all something that a twenty year old guy should be doing, let alone one she's seriously dating.

Selena just thinks it's cute.

-

Smudged lipstick is easy enough to explain away. Sometimes she snacks in between takes, is all.

(Yeah, so she's memorised David's smirk by now.)

-

She's been asked the question often enough, but for the record, no: she doesn't kiss and tell.


End file.
